beleaguer

• beleagure

Borrowed from Dutch belegeren and/or Middle Low German belēgeren; equivalent to be- +‎ lair. Compare also German belagern. The English spelling was perhaps influenced by unrelated league.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bɪˈliː.ɡə/, /bəˈliː.ɡə/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɪˈli.ɡɚ/
• Rhymes: -iːɡə(ɹ)

beleaguer (third-person singular simple present beleaguers, present participle beleaguering, simple past and past participle beleaguered)

1. To besiege; to surround with troops.
   • 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Beleaguered City”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, →OCLC, stanzas 1–2, page 22:

     I have read in some old marvellous tale, / Some legend strange and vague, / That a midnight host of spectres pale / Beleaguered the walls of Prague. // Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, / With the wan moon overhead, / There stood, as in an awful dream, / The army of the dead.

2. To vex, harass, or beset.
3. To exhaust.

• beleaguerment

• beleagure